


Tell Yourself That It's Just Business

by solacesz



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Asexual Relationship, Battery!AU, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 19:17:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3180092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solacesz/pseuds/solacesz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the Battery!AU (http://wehavegunsforhands.tumblr.com/).<br/>Ryan is an expert modifier for the, now illegal, CHIPs. He usually sells to a small group of clients but when his clientele was decreasing, he decided to find some new buyers. What he stumbles into is a little more than he bargained for. </p>
<p>Edit: I'm not really a fan of this, I'm not gonna delete it but I'll never continue it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Yourself That It's Just Business

Time didn't really bother Ryan any more. He'd spent years living off a few hours of sleep here and there. When they introduced an alertness CHIP, Ryan was the first person to modify one. He amped up the power, and fixed the bugs that caused it to only work occasionally. Ryan hardly ever needed to sleep. He was awake and working. Ryan bought old CHIPs to modify and hack in order to create higher functioning, but highly illegal, parts and stimulants. His latest mod was a pair of Inner City glasses from non-CHIP folk, but modified to show any known information about person's it sees. The hardest part of this project was getting the data of every person from the Inner City and its surrounding suburbs off the police records and into a minuscule data card, and then syncing the facial recognition technology.

Ryan had been working on several projects at once when he’d heard gun shots from the street below. Normally, his attention would have been focused on his work despite the background noise but that day, something made him look out the grimy, second floor window. The sky was cloudy, as it always was, and the ground was littered with rubbish and muck. Amongst the scenery stood a gang, three men and one woman on the ground, and one man on a roof that only Ryan could see. The gang was a troop of characters but Ryan didn’t pay much attention to the four on the ground. The one on the roof had caught his eye. He was wearing a white jacket and had rabbit-like reflexes. He had been picking off their opposition before Ryan could even see them moving. 

Suddenly a beat-up, old van skidded to a halt in front of the four members on the ground. The side door flew open and the gang piled inside, and several shots were fired out the door before it could shut. Just like that, the gang was gone. Even the man on the roof was gone. All that remained was bodies with bullet holes, pools of blood, and tyre skids.

-

Business was unusually slow. Ryan always had a lot of new gear but never any new customers, if anything he was missing customers. He decided he should invest in some advertising.  
When he went out to the streets, Ryan always covered his tattoos. Not because tattoos weren't allowed but because he didn't want to draw attention. His right arm had the circuitry pattern from his first modded CHIP, his left arm a geometric, solid black design that reaches from his shoulder to his fingertips. Apart from the tattoos, Ryan's tech involvement was mostly hidden. He implanted small CHIPs or used detachable ones that were disguised as something else, like his glasses, so he could still visit the Inner City to buy supplies. He was a tall man with a strong build, but he had a warm smile and he always tried to be an upstanding citizen when he wasn't making illegal parts.  
Ryan needed to get some new customers and he knew of very little places to get them on his normal route so he decided to venture into the club district.

The club district, located on Jackson Street, was full of establishments with neon lights, sidewalks that had seen too many bodies, and customers who'd had too much to drink. The street was bustling with all sorts of people. Techies, cyborgs, norms, visitors from the Inner City, and even the occasional soldier. Ryan walked past many establishments before he discovered  
a club called Mod Powers at the corner of the street. Mod Powers was almost the same as the other bars on the street, but it was missing the crowds. The outside was nothing special, it didn't have flashing lights or lots of advertisements for major artists that were playing there. It was just there.  
As Ryan entered, he was hit with a warmth that smelled of alcohol and smoke. It was very dark, and very empty. There was a worker at the bar with his back to the door, and a small group of people sitting close together around a booth. All the people at the table turned to look at Ryan as he walked up to the bar. 

"What can I get you?" The barman said without even turning around.

"I'm not really a drinker, I was wondering if you know of any tech buyers that frequent here?" He felt awkward asking a stranger such a heavy question. Ryan was kind of on edge because the table of people talked in hushed whispers, and continued to monitor his movements.

“Why, are you a cop?” The barman turned and looked at Ryan. The glasses Ryan had made to identify every person he talked to had missing information. The barman’s face was not recognised, however he was wearing a name tag that said ‘iDroid’.

“Nope, just looking for, uhh, some tech buyers.” Ryan was getting more and more fidgety the longer he stood by the bar.

“Well if you’re not a cop, then what’re you selling?” iDroid raised an eyebrow. The side and back of his hair was a short, razor cut. It was dyed ice white and glowed under the blacklight of the bar, Ryan noticed.

“Just some stuff. You don't seem to really be the tech type so I'll just go.” The words at the end of Ryan’s sentence didn't seem to flow. He knew before he left his apartment that it was stupid to ask a stranger at a bar about selling modded gear.

“Wait. I might know of someone looking to buy special pieces… if that’s your sort of thing?” iDroid said as Ryan turned to leave. Ryan’s eyes lit up which signalled to the barman that ‘special pieces’ were in fact his sort of thing. “Follow me.”

iDroid guided Ryan through a back door in the club, and up a staircase that lead to a dim hallway with many doors. The door at the end of the hall had a crooked sign that read ‘Don't wake Daddy’ hanging off the handle. A sliver of light peeped out from under the door. iDroid and Ryan passed six closed doors that lined the hallway, some with odd noises coming from within. iDroid motioned for Ryan to stop just in front of the door at the end. There were voices talking but not loud enough to pick up what they were actually saying. iDroid knocked twice on the door, paused, and then knocked twice again. 

“Come in!” Shouted a man. With that invitation, iDroid opened the door wide enough for him to peek through without Ryan seeing anything but more streams of light and a wall with some interesting maps. iDroid mouthed something to the persons inside and then nodded in response before opening the door fully.

Ryan passed through the doorway into the room. There was a large desk in the centre of the room which commanded attention. Sitting behind the desk was a man with an impressive moustache and tattoos, to his left a slender lady with mech infused arms who was slouched against a bookcase, and standing to his right was iDroid. As Ryan nervously looked at the three people in the room, he realised that his database was also missing any information about the man and the woman.

“Well, don’t just stand there. Tell us what your name is and what you can offer us.” The moustached man leaned forward in his chair, giving Ryan a look that expected a swift response.

Ryan nervously began an answer. “I’m, umm, Ryan and I make modified CHIPs and other tech from the Inner City. But I don't live there, I live in the apartment district. Y’know the one with all the buildings that look exactly the same? Yeah, that one. I have a small place that is big enough to work in but I have so much stuff everywhere it’s getting a bit cramped-” The man started laughing and sat back in his chair, resting his legs on the large desk which revealed one of them to be prosthetic. Ryan was startled by the laugh that interrupted his train of thought.

“I didn't ask for your life story, kid. Also you made two mistakes. One, you told me your name, and two, you told me where you live. What sort of CHIP dealer are you?” The man continued laughing. When Ryan failed to respond, the man realised he probably scared him.  
“Look, you seem nice enough and without any actual products to show, you’re just here for a job interview. Do you drink?”

“Once in a blue moon. I have some products to show you as well.” Ryan was confused about how this went from an illegal process of selling modded gear, to being a job interview. Or a mixture of both. Ryan pushed the sleeves of his jacket up his arms to reveal his tattoos, a watch-like device on his right wrist, and a flat metal strip with several buttons and a latch seemingly embedded in his left wrist. "And I have experience with the initial lot of test subjects for the CHIP technology so I know how to use and fix the anti-magnet chambers."  
iDroid raised an eyebrow in the same way he did at the bar, and looked toward the man behind the desk. The man nodded at iDroid and turned to the woman. They exchanged glances and nodded also.

“That’s good enough for me. Anyone who has embedded CHIPs nowadays has got to be a pretty good modder, and we need new stuff.” The man kicked his legs off the desk and leaned forward with a hand outstretched. “Please, call me Daddy. Welcome to the Fakes.”

**Author's Note:**

> The next chapter introduces the rest of the people and explains a few more things that might need clarifying.


End file.
